"Oh, that looks good," Diederich says with an approving nod and turns the screen around to share her success. (For the record, Bleu's goat cheese curds taste as good as they photograph.)

Regardless if you support in-restaurant food photography or not, Diederich can get away with it for a couple of reasons:

1.) Her effervescent personality and adorable grin could right nearly any wrong.

2.) Her influence on locals and tourists alike is staggering. Where she goes, foodies follow.

Diederich is the director of partnerships and business development for the Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, a role she has been in for nearly five years. That means she educates tourism-based businesses, like hotels and restaurants, on the latest trends and helps them make a lasting impression on visitors.

It also means she is the muscle behind the Green Bay Restaurant Week machine, a week-long dining event where participating restaurants present three-course menus at $10 for lunch and either $20 or $30 for dinner.

But today Diederich is busy because The Food Network's Alton Brown is in town for a live show at the Weidner Center and every restaurant wants the celebrity chef to dine at their establishment. In between teaching one restaurant owner how to leverage hashtags on Twitter and coaching another on food photography, Diederich's phone pings with endless emails, texts and voice messages from restaurateurs alerting her to Brown's every move.

"He's at Kavarna now," Diederich reports. "This is awesome."

Diederich is obviously tight with those in the restaurant scene and it's these relationships which helped spur the first Green Bay Restaurant Week in 2013.

"These restaurants have done such a good job banding together to make this event consistent," she says. "That seems to be the recipe for success with this event – being consistent and offering something amazing."

Cooking Up Restaurant Week

Last year, 58 restaurants served 30,000 Restaurant Week meals with a total economic impact of more than $1 million.(Photo: Mike Peters)

Now in its third year, Green Bay Restaurant Week has proven to be a wildly successful program for the Green Bay community, businesses and visitors alike. But Diederich admits it was a tough sell to an organization whose mission is to draw tourists from outside the area.

Diederich first came across the Restaurant Week concept at an industry conference she attended in 2011 where she learned how other markets executed the event.

"I presented it to a couple key people in the organization and they said it was a pretty local thing, and that's not really our mission, so we scratched that idea," she says. "I was not convinced it was just a local thing, but I let it go although it was still in the back of my mind."

At the following year's conference, Diederich turned to her nationwide colleagues for help. They armed her with the facts and figures she needed to prove that this event was not only good for the local community, but that it would strengthen the Convention & Visitors Bureau's restaurant partnerships as well as elevate Green Bay's foodie status in the eyes of the rest of the world. The argument? If you can pull off Restaurant Week, your community must have some amazing restaurants.

"I got all the ammo I needed and I came back and wasn't taking no for answer. We have to do this, we are perfect for this and who better than us? We already have relationships with these restaurants, we could feasibly start this and run it ourselves," Diederich says. "Our director of marketing and president both said 'Okay let's try it.' I'm pretty sure I screamed."

Diederich and Director of Marketing Brenda Krainik set to work researching best practices, hosting focus groups and hammering out the details such as dates and price points. They also had to market the event to ensure both locals and visitors participated.

"Our job is to paint this picture of our market for the foodies of the world, that this is definitely a place to check out. They may not have thought that before," Diederich says.

Once planning was finalized and Green Bay's first Restaurant Week approached, there was nothing for Diederich and Krainik to do but sit back and watch.

"We lost sleep we were so nervous about it. We got everybody to buy into this idea, so it has to work. If it doesn't, well, they are going to be looking to me," Diederich says.

“We needed somebody to believe in it and I believed strongly in it. I just needed people to get on board who felt the same way. It needed somebody to take that step forward and do something about it.”

Jessica Diederich

Luckily for Diederich, it worked. Very well.

The first year 59 restaurants served 18,000 Restaurant Week meals. (To put that into perspective, Diederich was hoping to sell 4,000 meals.) Last year, 58 restaurants served 30,000 Restaurant Week meals with a total economic impact of more than $1 million.

"We needed somebody to believe in it and I believed strongly in it," Diederich says. "I just needed people to get on board who felt the same way. It needed somebody to take that step forward and do something about it."

Forks Up

Seventy-two restaurants will participate in Restaurant Week 2015, which will run July 9 through 16. This year, diners will get to try more two for $20 and two for $30 dinner options.

It may seem too good to be true, but that's part of the point of Restaurant Week. Restaurants are held to strict standards when it comes to portion size and value. In Diederich's own words, "When you finish this meal, you should be stuffed." So how is it that diners can get a hefty three-course lunch for $10 or a three-course dinner at a fine dining restaurant for $20?

"We aren't making a profit off Restaurant Week," says Diederich, who notes the participating restaurants view the promotion as an investment in creating return customers. "We do this for the community and these restaurants we partner with. We want to see them succeed and we want to show the culinary talents in this area. We aren't just beer, brats and cheese. Those are great, but we have so much more to show."

The prix fixe menus showcase some of the area's most talented chefs who have personalized each menu to reflect their culinary style and every menu at every restaurant is different.

"These restaurants are amazing, they are pros who know what they are doing. They are our first impression of what we have to offer the rest of the world and they make us proud," she says. "I'm so proud I get to be a part of it."

Come Restaurant Week, Diederich is on high alert. She eats out for nearly every meal, observing the dynamic of diners.

"You see people getting together, people who went to high school together, couples, families, girlfriends," she says. "They take the time to do it during Restaurant Week. Seeing stuff like that and knowing we are making an impact in people's lives is awesome."

Diederich, a wife and mother of two, likes to think of it as saving the world, one meal at a time.

"We joke in the office that we may have saved a marriage or two," she says, "because we get couples to go out to dinner again."

Jessica recommends visiting gbrestaurantweek.com to see participating restaurants and all of their Restaurant Week menus to plan your meals.(Photo: Mike Peters)

Jessica's Restaurant Week pro tips

· Make a game plan. Go to gbrestaurantweek.com to see participating restaurants and all of their Restaurant Week menus to plan your meals.

· Narrow your focus. The best way to navigate through the online list of restaurants is to narrow your search by price point or type of cuisine.

· Make reservations, especially for large groups. Not all restaurants take reservations, but most fine dining establishments do and they book fast.

· Buddy up. Try this year's new offering with a date or friend – two for $20 and two for $30 dinner options.

Kick off Restaurant Week by supporting aspiring chefs on Tuesday, July 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Rock Garden in Green Bay. The first Culinary Challenge features 10 student teams from Pulaski and Preble High Schools who will each conceive and create signature hors d'oeuvres. Sample the cuisine and pick your favorite! Money raised will benefit each school's culinary arts program.

Tickets are $10 each and are available at the Greater Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, 1951 West and Preble and Pulaski culinary students.

Photos by Mike Peters on location at Plae Bistro, Bellevue, and OGAN, De Pere